Top Hurdles Your Customers Face to Buy From You – Conversion Wednesday

By EXCLUSIVE teamAugust 3, 2011

TOPICSConversion

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Customers face all sorts of hurdles in order to complete a purchase from you online. Today I am going to discuss 5 hurdles that your customers may face and options in order to make them less difficult for your customers.

I almost see completing a purchase online as a salmon run. Only the most motivated, skilled and lucky survive. Leaving only 2% to complete their sale. Somehow 98% of your shoppers get eaten up by the bears.

Hurdle #1 – Time
Whether this is a reality or perception, not everyone has a spare 30 minutes to browse around your store, finally find a product they want, wait for your site’s shopping cart to load, and start filling out extensive shipping and billing forms after trying to find their credit card. It’s exhausting just thinking about it, and takes all the excitement out of shopping if the customer doesn’t perceive a quick and easy shopping experience.

Now, it’s hard to change your shoppers perceptions, but there are a few things you can do to make it look like your site is fast to shop from.

Make your site faster. Speed is everything when it comes to shopping online. Just like you expect McDonalds to have your favorite Cheeseburger ready within a few minutes. Shoppers are continuing to expect a Fast shopping experience online. There are many development tricks to make your site faster and in past videos we cover this topic extensively.

Keep past customer and credit card information. Amazon has done this for years, and maintains the reputation for a fast and easy shopping experience because you do not need to fill out lengthy forms over and over again. If your platform has this ability, take advantage of it in a well thought out manner.

Messaging and Design: make your site look clean and simple to shop from giving the perception of a quick place to shop, and let the customer know how fast and your easy your checkout process is through key terms on your product and checkout pages.

Hurdle #2 – Attention
How do you keep your shoppers from being distracted by their daily lives and keep their attention on your website and nobody elses?

This may seem like mission impossible…in fact it is very difficult to keep anyone’s attention let alone while shopping online.

Now you will never be able to keep everyone’s attention, but here are a few best practices that revolve around the concept of relevancy

Keep up with trends and make sure to keep your merchandise up to date

Make your content relevant to their problem. If your products solve a problem, recognize that problem and offer solutions. This shows that you know your what customer is interested in and may keep them on your site long enough to browse your selection.

If you sell brands that your shoppers recognize, show them off. Brand recognition is a great way for the shopper to relate and keep them interested a little longer

Again, clean up your design, remove distractions and make your customer feel comfortable. It’s sort of the difference between a Kmart experience with bright flourescent lights and the soft lighting and friendly sales staff of Nordstrom. One where you want to get in and out, and one where you want to take a seat and try on those expensive pair of shoes.

I can talk about this subject all day, but I simply don’t have enough time to ramble on. If you would like more information and talk with me further, give us a call at